Columbus Dispatch Executive Contributed to State Senator’s Campaign
Oh the outrage! I wonder if the Dispatch will hold it’s writers and executives to the higher standard that the PeeDee appears to enforce willy nilly. Michael F. Curtin (who is vice chair and COO of The Dispatch Printing Co. and associate publisher of The Columbus Dispatch) donated to Kevin Coughlin’s campaign. A campaign our friends at The Chief Source called “the most spineless-gutter-smear-garbage-campaign we have seen in Northeast Ohio“.
He also gave $25,000 to “Vote No Casinos”. That’s a whole buncha “free speech” there my friends!
So let’s do this. Let’s go digging. Fire up the Ohio Money Tree and see what writers, editors, and publishers we can find exercising their right to free speech by giving money to candidates or causes of their choice. Sound like fun? Leave ‘em in comments!
Disclaimer: This assumes there are not multiple Michael F. Curtins running around like there were David Stacys.
I posted about this tonight, but the Coughlin donation came from a G. Michael Curtin - not the same as the Dispatch individual. I wrote Mr. Curtin at the Dispatch and asked him to verify the 25K. I’ll post when I know.
I’ve also read a few things now that seem to say, editors and publishers can do whatever they want with their money, it’s just newsroom staff. Given that the editors and publishers perform the function of those filters we’re supposed to trust, it actually seems as though it’s MORE important that they not give money, yeah???
Seems to me that bloggers are the most likely to be trusted because they are the most out there as far as being transparent and knowing what to expect. Everyone else has all sorts of rules that may or may be applied from one job to the next and one place to the next.
No logic to me.